Why I Should Never Be God: Genesis, Part I

Yesterday, a small group of very astute and intelligent third graders declared that I should be God. After quelling the strong desire to set myself up on a throne and order them to bring me sacrifices and offerings while attending to my every whim, I reminded them that this would be a terrible idea.

As God, I would be omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, omniineffective, and omnineurotic.

It would be the very worst idea.

Here are some good, strong, Biblical illustrations of why I should most certainly NOT be the All-High Creator of All That Is.

Let us begin at the beginning:

The First Day of Creation
IN THE BEGINNING God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep. The spirit of God swept over face of the waters.
Then God said,
'I feel like maybe there should be light or something. But maybe not. I don't want to be wrong. Like, I'm really good at meeting/exceeding expectations, but I don't even know what's expected of me, here. Probably I should just leave this formless void. I don't deserve anything more than a formless void, anyway. It pretty much reflects my whole wasted existence, so far. I mean, I had an opportunity to create light, and I totally missed it, and now I only have the rest of all eternity to try making light again. And I mean, why me? I'm sure there's some other God out there who is way better at making light than I am. If I'm not the best creator, I have no business being a creator at all. And what if I make light, and then nobody even wants it. What then? Everyone will know how awful I am, and they'll hate me. Seriously,  I bet they're only letting me create the heavens and the earth because they feel bad for me. But don't they realize that will backfire? Don't they want a quality creation? I can't be responsible for all of existence. I'm not good enough.'
And lo, it stayed dark, formless, and angsty for ever and ever.


The First Sin, and it's Punishment
Adam and Eve heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden at the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man, and said to him, 'Where are you?' He said, 'I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.' And the LORD God said, 'Eww.' Adam said, 'The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the forbidden tree, and I ate." The woman said, 'The serpent tricked me, and I ate.'
The LORD God said to them,'Seriously?! You can't just take responsibility for yourselves like normal, adult people? I really don't have time for this. I'm stressed out enough as it is. It's not even that big of a deal. I'm probably wrong about that being a bad tree anyway, and honestly, I need you to be able to think for yourselves. Like, stop making a big deal about nothing. It's just a piece of fruit, for My sake! Just don't do it anymore. Also, please get out of my garden. You're WAY too loud, and WAY too naked, and I just need some peace and quiet. You can all come back in when you promise to get along and use your quiet voices.'
God drove out the man and woman; and at the east of the garden of Eden God placed the cherubim, and a sword flaming and turning to guard the way to the super quiet Napping Place of the LORD.

The offerings of Cain and Abel
In the course of time, Cain brought to the LORD an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel for his part brought of the firstlings of his flock, their fat portions. And the LORD was all, 'Oh my goodess! Poor firstlings! What did they ever do to you? No, it's okay, I know you meant well. It's okay, Abel. Please don't cry. But maybe try to think about how those firstlings felt. They were just babies! They had mothers! No. It's fine. I don't blame you, like, at all, but just maybe try to have empathy for the sheep. I think that would be a good idea, don't you? You boys are so sweet. But you don't have to give me gifts, dead-sheep gifts, or fruit gifts, or anything. Don't you know I love you no matter what? Yes. Even when you fight and try to slay each other. But please don't slay each other. Thanks.' And the LORD God gaveth them each a hug, and they all ate fruit and took a good nap, and no one slew anyone that day.

The wickedness of humankind
The LORD saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. And the LORD was sorry that she had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved her to her heart. So the LORD said, 'See? What did I say? I should never be in charge of anything. Everything I do always fails. And now I've gone and ruined humanity, of all things. UGH! I am literally the worst!'
And God said to Noah, 'Make an ark of cypress wood, if you don't mind. I'd do it myself, but I think it's pretty clear to everyone that I'm terrible at making things.' Noah did this; he did all that God politely and tentatively asked of him. Then the LORD said to Noah, 'Oh my me, thank you SO much. You are seriously the best!' And the LORD jumped in the ark and sailed away to keep from doing any further damage to the face of the earth, and also to wallow in guilt and shame for the rest of all eternity.

The Tower of Babel
Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. And as they migrated from the east, they came upon a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. And they said to one another, 'Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.' And the LORD said, 'Sounds reasonable.' But then the LORD accidentally tripped and fell into the tower, and the people scattered abroad over the face of all the earth. And the LORD said, 'UGH! See?! I always do this!'

The Birth of Ishmael, and the death of Sarai and Abram
Now Sarai, Abram's wife, bore him no children. She had an Egyptian slave-girl whose name was Hagar, and Sarai said to Abram, 'You see that the LORD has prevented me from bearing children; go in to my slave-girl; it may be that I shall obtain children from her.' He went in to Hagar, and she conceived.
Then Sarai said to Abram some jealous, whiny, teenage nonsense that isn't even really worth repeating. And Abram said to Sarai, 'Your slave-girl is in your power; do to her as you please.' Then Sarai dealt harshly with her, and she ran away.
And the LORD was all, 'Oh, HELL no!' And the LORD smote Sarai and Abram that day, because the LORD is kind and merciful, slow to anger and rich in kindess, but if you think that kind of middle-school nonsense is something the LORD will abide for even, like, half a second, you'd better think again. Because we don't treat each other like that. We just don't. Absolutely not okay. Seriously. The end.

(But also, to be continued...)

water and fire

"We make vows we intend to keep, and then we spend our days in life's middle, clenching them tight. How could we know what our vows mean until we've dug our fingernails deep into them all those years later. How can we notice the hard beauty of such words, the thick holiness of hope, until we experience what living a vow requires? Vows always demand an entire life."" 

(Micha Boyett, Found)

When my oldest was nearly one, we ordered overpriced stationary, used my new-found online shopping skills to select a delicate white gown and bonnet, and commissioned a fancy cake in blue and green frosting with "God Bless Sylvie Noelle" scrolled across the top. Having grown up in traditions that practiced infant baptism, it seemed natural that my husband and I would have our first child baptized as a precious baby, to the oohs of delighted parishioners and the glowing pride of  first time grandparents. Neither of us were sure we actually believed in infant baptism, but were assured that the ritual could be performed and given whatever level of meaning we wished to ascribe to it. We called it "baptism" because "dedication" sounded a bit watered-down, but held the term loosely,our unformed theologies bridging the tension between the two.

Our oldest daughter had been a terrifying surprise and a sleepless baby. We seized on her baptism as a declaration of welcome, asserting  that yes, this child was God's wonderful gift, even if our future together now looked vastly different than we had planned. Yes, she was wanted. Yes, she was loved and adored. Yes, her life was desired and longed for, a sign of the hope that surprises and knocks us off our guard, the God who gives in unlikely times and unlikely places, to unlikely people, ready or not.

When my second was nearly one, she had just recently drawn breath with enough strength and regularity to earn freedom from the menacing oxygen tanks and tangles of tubing that had anchored her fragile self to our home for so many months. Her breath and laughter were as much prayer as I could allow in a world that had almost taken her from me, a world that now seemed ripped by the awareness that death is real, that the normalcy of daily life is heaven on earth and never to be taken for granted, that the universe is a capricious place, taking and giving life at a pace that left me almost as breathless as my child who wasn't supposed to live.

For months and months, I waited for the other shoe to drop. Why should my child live while others did not? Surely tragedy was just around the corner. I never let my guard down. Not for a second. And I never breathed a prayer. I was certain even a timid "thank you" would result in the earth swallowing her up, as a lesson to me for thinking that it should be otherwise.

We used her condition as an excuse to stop attending church, to take a break. We met for a while with a pastor and his wife who hoped to plant a new church. My oldest played quietly with toys on a blanket in the corner of the little chapel in which we met. My husband participated, praying and singing, and socializing. I spent the time repeating the one prayer I could pray, screaming silently to God "I need you to be good. I need you to be good. You have to be good. You have to be good." The baby careened around with reckless abandon, shouting "Alleluia! Amen! Glory! Glory!" But we didn't have her baptized. These pastors did not believe in baptizing infants. Only dedicating. And now, dedication didn't have that same, watered-down feeling. Now, it felt more sinister.

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In the Bible, dedication isn't merely a kind word, a sprinkle of water, and the polite clapping of friends and family. In the Bible, dedication is serious. Dedicating your child to God, pledging someone to the Holy One of Israel, can get them killed. Isaac avoided the fire by the grace of a goat in the brambles. Jephthah's daughter was not nearly so lucky. Samson was pledged to God as a child, grew his hair as a sign of that pledge, and it was this hair, this symbol of his dedication, that was both his strength and his undoing. Jesus was dedicated in the Temple, baptized in the Jordan, and crucified at Gethsemane. Certainly, Jesus rose again. Certainly, Isaac helped found a nation. But not everyone gets to be an Isaac. Not everyone gets to walk back down the mountainside. And the nation of people pledged as God's own, scattered like stars in this magnificently expanding universe, those people suffered and starved, were enslaved and sacrificed.

Dedication is never safe. Vows are risks. I had just received this child against all odds. I grasped her life, wrapped myself around it, and protected it greedily. She was mine. My beautiful, unlikely child. I couldn't take the risk of dedicating her to a God that asks for sacrifices. I was not ready to have that sort of faith credited to me as righteousness. I just needed God to be good. And to leave me and my child alone.

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But she has been God's from the beginning. I had made that pledge already, with the hasty intensity of Jephthah, going out to battle, with the naivety and uncertainty of Abram needing to believe that God is good, that this wild universe is woven together with glorious purpose, and gentle mercy. 

The night I was rushed to the hospital, at the top of the stairs, hunched over and screaming, wild and irrational, about to lose the life growing inside of me, I promised God my child. I promised that if she were allowed to live, she would not be mine, but God's. The blood, and tears, and terror were all bound together that night like an ancient sacrifice. My screams rose up like smoke on the altar. 

This world is more wild and awake than we like to admit. We create rituals to both remind ourselves of the profound mysteries and heart-stopping savagery of existence, and also to contain them.  That night at the top of the stairs, on the verge of heartbreaking loss, there were no birds split in two, no flesh consumed by flame, no precious oils or dreadful ash, but there was blood, there was holiness, there was dedication, and there was a vow.

 *          *          *          *          

On Sunday, my youngest will be baptized in our church, a church that has pledged itself to the all-embracing love of a God of hope for unlikely people. She will have no gown, no cake, no embossed invitations. She will probably wear torn leggings, smudged glasses, and a goofy, self-conscious grin. Water will be poured out. She will make her own vow, a vow she has repeatedly asked to make, even if she does not fully understand it (do we ever fully understand it?). And I will not hold her back. This child is mine, surely. But she is also the child of a God who is larger and more terrifying than the inflatable hot tub/baptismal font and her goofy grin let on. She is my child, but she is also the child of a God whose love is wilder, freer and more profound than even our best rituals can fully reveal. She has never not been God's child. But now she will declare this daring truth, the one I dared not speak for years. And I will let her. 

Some rituals are fire, blood, and sacrifice. And some are water, oil, and new life. Our vows lead us to both. They curl up like smoke. and they leave us empty, vessels for spirit and living water. And in between is all this earth. In between is where we hold each other in the blessed miracle of day to day life, woven together with glorious purpose and gentle mercy.

And so I will continue to hold her, and her sister as well. Hold them as mine, and not-mine. Trusting that the pledges we make will shape us and leave us more whole. That they will lead  us into risking a more vulnerable and powerful humanity, living as children of a God who I choose to believe against all odds is breath-takingly and breath-givingly good. A God who is with us in the consuming fire and in the life-giving water, in the earthy forgetting of the everyday, and in our breathless, fearful vows. At the top of the stairs, knee-deep in baptismal waters, and every moment of the in between.

Alleluia. Amen. Glory. Glory.

Paraphrasing the Lectionary Like Some Sort of Heretic: I Samuel 4:1-11

So, the Philistines attacked the Israelites and killed a ton of them.

The Isrealites were acting very entitled about the whole thing. "WHY?! Why do bad things happen to us?! God loves us best! What the heck? We only deserve GOOD things! We're so bewildered!" Etc.

So then they decided to remind God who He worked for. They grabbed the Ark of the Covenant (where God sat between some cherubim wings being all electrical and stuff, probably...that's what I saw on the History Channel, which is a very reputable source, because it has the word "history" in the title), and brought it into camp. They were all, "Look God! Here you go. Remember us? Cool. Now do your thing."

But they said this very, very, loudly. Like, so loudly that it scared the crap out of the Philistines.

The Philistines started trembling and whimpering about the loud noises.  "Those noises are so scary! I want my Mommy!" Also, "There are probably some gods in that Israelite camp. Those gods will destroy us for sure. We heard some Isrealites shouting it, so it must be true! We are not the type of people to check our sources, or even Snopes anything. We like to take everything at face value, and the Israelites said to be scared, so..." And of course, "THIS HAS NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE! New things are scary! We are doomed!"

But then some of the Philistines realized that unbridled hysterics probably wouldn't be the best battle plan. "Guys," they said, "We should maybe stop whining about scary loud noises. It makes us seem unmanly. And manliness is the number one predictor of battle success. Trembling on the ground in fear of new things is probably not the manliest thing we have ever done. And there is a positive correlation between loads of machismo and annihilating your enemies in battle, so..."

So the Philistines decided to stop freaking out about toddler things. And they put on their manliest loin girders or whatever. And they made manly faces and manly noises to remind themselves how super manly they were. And they stomped their manly feet and went out into battle against the Israelites.

The Israelites brought their Ark-sitting, Cherubim-wing-inhabiting God on a throne, but it didn't matter. The Philistines were just so manly. And in their manliness, lo they defeated the Israelites that day. It was super tragic. But that's what you get for having an entitlement complex.

The End.

Interruptions

In the genealogy, at the beginning of His story, and your story too, mama. At the beginning of all that. In the genealogy, the lists of "son ofs," in the history and the lineage, there are the interruptions.

All these interruptions. Man, man, man, man, man, man, woman, man, man. Just a name. Slipped in like a breath. A breath of interruption. Nothing more. A feminine ending. A gentle sound amidst "the son of," "the son of," "the son of." Whispered interference in the patterns of centuries, patterns old and strong as the rocks, jutting up like monuments. Building heavy, stark monuments. Crying, "We saw the god here!" And holding that moment in stone forever. A trophy. An endless string of accomplishments. They see. They grasp. They claim. They Build. They say, "We are STRENGTH." Over and over again. And then  just these little breaths of interruptions. Girl names thrown into the pattern. Hardly there.

But you, mama. You, with a name that does not even fit in the pattern. A name that must ride alongside your husband's. A name that should not even be a breath of interruption, a whisper.

Your name, sweet mama, strong mama. Your name stops the story. Your name, spoken by an angel.

And your name, your breath of interruption, it is not some meek, quiet whisper, working its way around rock and monument of those men that keep seeing and saying, seeing, and saying, seeingsayingbuilding. No mama.

For all the ways you have been silenced. Over and over again. in the patterns of centuries. Mama, you have been the scapegoat. Strong and silent. Bearing what the monument builders could not bear. The blame, the unbearable beauty and utter sadness of seeing. Seeing without saying. Without building. Without claiming a monument. A trophy. Of seeing and bearing all the broken. All of the blame for the breaking.

For all of the ways you have been silenced mama, when your voice broke the pattern, it was not some whispered interruption. It was a cry. It was REVOLUTION that you said. Revolution. Not an interruption. THE interruption.

And all the names. All the breathless interruptions of feminine endings, of the emptiness where a "son of" should have been. Mama, they are like water splitting the rock. Drink for the thirsty in the barren desert of stone and monument. Living water.

Crying REVOLUTION. Crying WE TOO HAVE SEEN. Crying LOVE.

Signs You're Becoming an Evangelical

I used to be Catholic. I like so many things about the Catholic Church, and I find so many treasures in its traditions, rituals, teachings, and history. I loved being Catholic. But, for a variety of reasons, I'm not really Catholic anymore. I'm finding challenge in seeing things in a new way, in immersing myself in a different tradition. I've done a very improbable thing and have gone evangelical. High Church to low church.(I'm like Rachel Held-Evans in reverse. Only not church-famous). And it's starting to show. Thusly, I've compiled a helpful list for those who may be on a similar journey. I'm very helpful.


SIGNS YOU'RE BECOMING AN EVANGELICAL:

You snack on communion bread after the service. You don't get smote.

You become much more tolerant of lengthy sermons. You become much less tolerant of lengthy periods of silence.

You start to call them "sermons."

Your prayers contain an excessive use of the word "just."

Like, you just want to just thank you, Lord, for just loving us, and just caring for us. And we just want to ask you to just be with us, Lord, and just fill our hearts with your Holy Spirit, Lord. And we just want to glorify you, and just praise your name, O Creator of the Universe. You know. Just that.

And all of the sudden it's "Hallelujah" and not "Alleluia." But you're still not okay with "Jehovah." You're never going to be okay with "Jehovah."

Also, you're just not going to sing "sloppy, wet kiss" in church. You're just not. You don't care how evangelical it sounds, all you can think of is a large, lumbering dog, coming at you with it's dog-breath and wet tongue, and you love dogs, but you can't think about God that way. You just can't.

One of your arms tries very hard to fly into the air when singing praise songs. Luckily, your other arm is still firmly Catholic and will not allow that to happen. Not in this lifetime. It pins your charismatic/evangelical arm solidly to your side so you can sing quietly like a respectable person, thankyouverymuch.

But you sway a little when you sing. Even when the worship songs sound like pop songs. Especially when the worship songs sound like pop songs.

The songs you are swaying to say "me" and "I" an awful lot. A bit too much for your tastes. You were actually really cool with the "we" and "us" of Catholic hymns. They seemed less selfish. But the "me/I" songs do force you to entertain the possibility that you might individually matter. And not just if you give virgin-birth to a savior before you die a martyry death.

You consider the possibility that if God talks back, it doesn't mean you are a saint. You might just be a regular person. Which is disappointing. Because childhood-you had really planned on trying to be a saint. With miracles and whatnot. But whatever.

You start to wonder if maybe Halloween really is demonic. But then, nope. You're still good with Halloween. Because you're not that kind of evangelical. You're the fun kind. You just have to consider being spiritually paranoid and then reject it. It's part of the package. Oh my gosh, you're totally getting the hang of this!

You've started saying "oh my gosh" and "oh my goodness" instead of "oh my God" Because you like Halloween and Harry Potter, but you're not a heathen or anything.

Even though you were never in a youth group, didn't grow up listening to Christian music, and never had well-meaning adults police your burgeoning sexuality, you're still resentful about those years you feel like you spent in youth group, listening to Christian music, being sexually policed. You're jaded and cynical about how eagerly you (never actually) embraced the bland cultural Christianity that was (never actually) force-fed to you. Because you have a ton of empathy for all these evangelicals you've surrounded yourself with. And you're totally investing in this thing. Like, you're one of them now. I mean, you even know what "purpling" is and make jokes about it. You are SO an evangelical.

Like, you might possibly even be forming false memories of being born again, (and again, and again) at youth retreat altar calls you never actually attended.

That place you put your kids so other people will teach them theological concepts you're too uncomfortable to discuss with them is called Sunday School, not catechism. It happens on Sunday, and there are snacks, you guys! And crafts! So many crafts.

One of your children is baptized. The other is not. This makes you slightly uneasy, but you refuse to admit it, because you're not superstitious or anything. I mean, you're practically an anabaptist. But still. Limbo, guys.

You were into the liturgical calendar before the liturgical calendar was cool. Which makes you feel a little superior. You should probably go to confession.

You don't go to confession. I mean, you never actually went to confession in the first place. But you could have. (But you wouldn't have).

A woman stands up in front of you in church and talks for a long period of time, and no one has to do Canon-Law-gymnastics to make it happen.

But you have to be careful, because while misogyny isn't institutional, it's personal. You pick your church wisely to avoid this.

You pick your church.

You notice that no one cuts out of church immediately after communion in the Most Holy Race to the Parking Lot. In fact, you find yourself lingering after the service to socialize. People call this "fellowship" which seems like a stupid word, but a nice thing.

You don't want to say a scripted prayer before meals, because you feel like your prayer should be authentic. But saying authentic prayers out loud still makes you uncomfortable, so you let your kids pray, because that's valid now, and they say, "Thanks for farts," and you let them because that's authentic-you-guess, and also relevant. So relevant.

You really like things to be authentic and relevant. Maybe also radical, if you can swing it.

You know about different Bible translations, and you just go ahead and pick one, and you don't even ask anyone if it's okay.

You feel entitled to coffee during church services. You have a mini-tantrum in your heart when there is no coffee available. Because what are you going to hold in your charismatic/evangelical hand to keep it under control if there's no coffee?

But you are totally willing to sit on folding chairs. I mean, folding chairs are just a given.

You still do the Sign of the Cross compulsively and frantically whenever your spouse blows through a yellow light, or when someone cuts you off in traffic, though. Because the Sign of the Cross you will have with you always.

The Unlikely Existence of Aine Celeste

It is a strange thing, carrying immanent death inside of your body. It is heavy, dull, fragile, heartbreaking. It takes stoicism and fortitude. It takes a waiting and a care that do not feel like hope. It is a capitulation to the fact that all things die, that life comes to us wrapped in mortality, that love and life require both stinging pain and shattering loss. That this is a risk we take every time we dare to care or feel.

The likelihood of her surviving to "viability" (23 weeks gestation) was extremely small. The likelihood of her surviving past two weeks, less likely. The chance of a normal life, without ventilators, severe brain damage, and with the ability to speak, think and move normally, smaller still.

We decided to name her Aine, the Irish spelling for Anya, a name meaning "heavenly light." It was a deeply significant name, a symbol of her source and of where she would go, the light of the world that the darkness would not overcome. We named her on a day of bleak, cloudy darkness, when the sky was filled with clouds that seemed to streak past my hospital window carrying meaning, but not the meaning I wanted. Not hope. It was a clunky, unphonetic name, not one we would have burdened a child who would grow into an adult with. Not a name we would have given to a child who would be able to respond when her name was called for attendance. Not a name for a job resume, or a dance recital program, or a birthday card, or the top of a book report. It was a name for a tombstone, a death certificate, a name to hide away in our hearts when her lungs failed and her brain stopped, but her little memory stayed like an aching wisp in my chest and behind my eyes. It did not feel like hope, this naming. It felt like trying our very best to weave the pain into the most beautiful form we could. Aine, heavenly light, abstract, ethereal, spiritual, otherworldly, unreal.

*     *     *

In our sane moments, we dared not pray for her life. In our wild moments, we begged for miracles like little children. In our wild moments, our hearts gave us no other choice.

*     *     *

At church, a week before Easter, she grabbed her copy of the bulletin, flipped past the song lyrics, and found the sheet with blank spaces to list thank offerings, prayer requests and new member information. Her seven year old hands rifled recklessly through my purse, unearthing a pen. I let her use it to write the three things for which she was thankful. I looked away. I felt her pull on my shirt. "Mom, look!" On her sheet she had listed the usual things children are thankful for. Beneath them, in the prayer request column, usually reserved for the ill, the suffering, the grieving, was her name, printed in large, proud letters: Aine.

I started a bit. I had been raised Catholic. Prayer for me is mostly a private affair, or something very formal. The sharing of that intimacy in the form of a prayer request seems like a violation, an imposition. But Jesus said "let the little children come to me," and far be it from me to tell the child "no."

"Do you know what that's for, Aine?" I asked.

"Yes! It's for everybody to pray for me."

"And what would you like them to pray for?"

"For me, and for love," she said earnestly. And then, after a pause, "And that all the cute kitties in my life will live for ever and ever."

While I cannot possibly bring myself to have the earnest hope that requests prayer from strangers, my lovely daughter will ask every single person in the church to pray for the eternal life of all of the cats in her life. How could I say "no" to that? And so after scribbling a quick note on her prayer request sheet to reassure the pastoral staff that my beloved child was not in failing health or dire need, but merely wanted prayer for the kitties and for love, I let her place it on the altar with the rest, and promptly forgot all about it.

*     *     *

When you know there is little hope, you have to protect yourself somehow. The baby needed my body's stability, which relied on my mental and emotional endurance. I held my body still for her. My heart still. I died to everything around me that meant anything. I knew that loving her would kill me. And so I would not let myself love her as a person in the future. I would not imagine her as an adult, or even as a child or toddler. I imagined her as spirit, as an idea, as a precious, but vague being, as a symbol of something larger than I could comprehend, something that might give all of this meaning. Her name was Aine. Heavenly light. A name from a mother who could never hope to see her grow and thrive in this world.

*     *     *

She used to cry when she saw her name spelled wrong on Christmas cards. The first day of kindergarten she came home enraged that the art teacher had mispronounced her name. She demanded that I go yell at her. I explained to her that her name was special. That it was from a language that was part of our family's heritage. That it meant something beautiful. That it spoke to the light and life that shone from every fiber of her little, lively being. She made her peace with this eventually, but she still asks why her name has to be so difficult for everyone to say and spell. I remind her that it is special, like she is, but I only half believe this. Mostly I feel guilt.

Her name reminds me of my hopelessness. Of my inability to envision life for my child. Her name reminds me of the feelings of depression and sorrow that I have yet to shake. My child's name is a legacy of what little faith I had in her strength and survival. I have given her a name that wasn't meant for this world. I named her in my grieving, before I had a right to grieve, to name, to give up. It is a beautiful name, but it is a symbol of my pessimism. Meanwhile, she carries a resilience born of being told "no" from the very beginning. She is earnest, optimistic, hopeful, open, running toward hurt and pain in spite of it all, hoping to transform it with her abundant love.

The child who would never walk dances. The child who would never breathe, wails.

I am everything she is not. Her name reminds me of this.

*     *     *

On Easter, we dressed up and went to church as a family. She writhed in her seat, constantly tugging on my dress, until I began to half ignore her, smiling passively and making vague, unthinking comments in her direction.

Her tugging became more insistent. "Look, Mom!" She pulled so hard on me that I was forced to turn around and look down. She was pointing hard at the prayer request portion of the bulletin, at the list of names we would read aloud before communion, the list of suffering, grieving, sick, struggling people. In the midst of the names, I saw it: "Aine."

She was giddy with excitement and nerves. "Are they going to pray for me? Are they going to actually say my name?" she asked, anxiously, smiling and rocking and gazing at me with her small eyes wide behind her dirty, crooked glasses.

"I guess so."

"Are they going to say it right?"

My heart dropped. Once again, my lack of hope had let her down. "Probably not, baby. They will probably say it like "rain," only without the "R," because that might be what it looks like to them, sweetie. But that's okay, right?"

She nodded, reluctantly. Her face fell. She is used to this, but she doesn't like it. "But why can't they just say it right? Can we tell them? Will God know it's me?"

"We can't tell them, love. But it will be okay. They'll still be praying for you."

*     *     *

When she was small and frail, inside of my failing body, so many people insisted on praying for me. They didn't ask, and I didn't request it. They just prayed. They insisted that I join them. They insisted that if I prayed hard enough, God would save my baby. I hated them for that. What about the people who pray with everything in them, with the same anguish I had prayed, shrieking and moaning at the top of my stairs when the bleeding started, and I knew I would lose her? The people who fervently, from the depths of everything they were, screamed and wailed, "God, please save my baby, you have to save my baby," and who lost their babies all the same? I could not believe that God was so easily manipulated, like a magical totem. More importantly, I could not let myself hope that God would create some special miracle, just for me, when so many others suffered. Above all, I could not let God let me down. I was without prayer and without hope, aside from, "Let it be done to me according to your will," and "Let some beauty, some light, come from all this darkness."

*     *     *

As the Easter service moved nearer and nearer to the prayer segment, she wriggled more and more, nervously fingering her name on the program. My hopeful little child. I reminded her again and again that her name would probably be mispronounced. I didn't want her to be disappointed. I, too, was nervous. I felt guilty, letting her impose herself on the prayer life of a hundred-odd acquaintances and strangers, I, who could not even let people pray for her in the hour of her direst need. I, her mother without hope.

The pastor stood up and led the congregation through the next portion of the service. She introduced the prayer section. Then she paused "Before we begin, I wanted to point out that there is one name that might be a little hard to pronounce. It's A-I-N-E. It's pronounced Ahn-yuh."

My little Aine waved her hand in the air, smiling shyly and the surrounding churchgoers, who I am sure were wondering what horrific malady she was suffering from.

*     *    *

The prayer begins. We read the names out loud, one at time. Normal names. Names that everyone can pronounce. She jumps from foot to foot, nervously, still grinning. And then I hear it, even as I am saying it: "Aine." They say it just right. Her face is glowing. I have allowed her the prayers I had feared for so long. My heart overflows.

*     *     *

It is a strange thing to carry hope inside you. Hope that feels like desolation, still, and dark, and quiet, buried under realism, and reason, and suffering. Hope that isn't a running toward, but a holding still. It feels like sorrow. It feels like pain and an awakening to the reality that we are but dust.

It is a strange thing to see this hope bear fruit. To watch it enter the world as a child, loud and strong, against all odds. It is not triumphant, but terrifying and confusing, to let go of a vision of death, the ghost you thought you had already met and let fly. To realize that instead, there is a person, wild and reckless, full of a hope that looks like what you thought hope should look like. Smiles, and courage.

It is a strange thing to see the other side of hope. To realize that it must have been there all along as something wise and mature, dark and inextricably rooted in suffering and joy, death and life.

It is hard to release myself from the guilt I feel for naming a child the name of an angel, the name of a piercing, ethereal ray. It is hard, but now not quite impossible, to see the shard of hope that must have been there all along, without which I could not have carried, heavy-hearted, this precious life inside my weak frame, without which I would not have been still and wrapped her in my care.

All along it was there, silent and deep. And without it, she would not be here, this wiggling, smiling child, all limbs and energy, running toward love and suffering with all of her being, tugging on my sleeve, saying, "Mom, did you hear? They said my name!"

Aine Celeste.

Born of hope.

My little shard of heavenly light.

Self-loathing and Sanctuary: How I found Jesus in Sunday School

Ever since we started attending our new church, Sunday services had provided a safe place in the midst of a week of activities that invariably make me feel not-good-enough. I spend all week burnt out and exhausted working a job that I could have worked without my college education, or even without a high school education, for that matter. So I feel guilty for being exhausted. If I'm tired while I'm underachieving, how could I ever possibly contribute anything meaningful and achieve-y to the world? Day after day I am squandering any potential I may have, and I'm absolutely fatigued from doing it. So I feel like a failure. And I feel guilty.

One of the reasons I give for working the job that I have is that the flexible schedule allows me to be home with my children when they are home, to be a "better parent." But the fact of the matter is that I'm a mediocre, sleep-deprived parent at best. I'm jumpy, irritable, disoriented, and not-too-terribly domestic. I want to engage with my children, but mostly I just want silence and a dark place to curl up and hide. 

Socially, I'm pretty much addled with anxiety, which leads to depression, which leads to anxiety, and on and on. So I feel guilty and awful in relation to my friends because I spend most days in hiding, not engaging socially at all. 

I also teach preschool dance and I'm lucky if I can get ten minutes of instruction in before they start throwing shoes and licking the mirror. Yet another weekly marker of my ineptitude.

I get that most of these things are a matter of my perception. I understand that probably I am an okay mother. I get that my whole identity isn't bound up in what type of job I have (even if all of my time is). I know that social anxiety is at least a little bit chemical, and that I'm doing the best I can. And I have yet to meet a toddler who wasn't tempted to lick a mirror now and then. But I still feel the way that I feel. I still feel guilty and shameful and wasted.

So for me, looking forward to Sundays had been the one thing that could coax me through the week. On Sundays I could just go and be, and not worry about if I was failing or succeeding, achieving or just pathetically scraping by, presenting the perfect social face or just barely managing to drag my depressed self out in public wearing something other than plaid pajama pants. Sundays were the one time when I didn't have to worry about being not-good-enough.

Of course, church is more than just taking and enjoying (although sometimes it needs to be exactly that, and I think that's okay, too). I want to participate. I want to give. I want to share, and help, and be a part of things. And so I volunteered to teach Sunday school. My husband and I had been teaching elementary kids together at the old church, and it had gone well. They think I'm funny, and the feeling is mutual. I could handle elementary school kids. I understood them. I felt okay teaching them. Not exactly like a teaching superstar, but adequate...which is about as close to confident as I get.

But our new church needed a preschool teacher, and as the universe seems to be conspiring to fill my life with small people at every turn, I was placed with the toddler/preschool group. And I was terrified.

If I sometimes struggle with a small dance class of a half dozen three year olds, what am I supposed to do with a dozen toddlers? And on a Sunday, the one single day of the week where there is sanctuary from my self-loathing and inadequacy? Instead of having something to look forward to, something to cling to in order to make it through the week, there was something to dread and fear. Instead of being a part of something new, and feel-good, and worship-y, and wonderful, I would be confined to the basement never to be seen again. Woe is me!  Yes. I know how utterly selfish this sounds. And I'm not saying that I didn't want to contribute at all, but just that maybe I should have signed up to be a greeter, or a communion-give-y person because I'm sure that I will ruin preschool for everyone. And because The Basement Forever. Woe, oh, woe! (I am inadequate and so very many things, but one of the things I am admittedly good at is melodrama. I am so, so good at melodrama.)

But I don't want to be selfish. I want to be selfless and confident. I feel the way I feel, but I'm trying not to be a slave to that. Because how I feel doesn't have to be how I act. I may feel depressed, but I can act out hope. I may feel selfish, but I don't have to behave that way. I might not even die if I go against my feelings. Maybe. 

And so I diligently practiced the very-very-scripted story that I was scheduled to teach. I practiced making my hand circle "in a counter-clockwise direction" over the story scenery (because apparently, if you circle your hand in a clockwise direction, Satan wins?). I practiced not inserting snarky feminist commentary into the preschool Bible story, because I'm told they don't get irony. And then I told my inner whiny child to be quiet. And I made my way to the basement nevertobeseenagain. And I braced myself. Because I was going to mess this up so badly. 

An then something surprising happened. 

Preschool was amazing. 

Not perfect. There were weeping children, and bickering children, and children who just flat out did not like the song that we were singing, and children who ran too quickly to be caught, and children who absolutely would not put away the Play-Doh because their creations should be immortal. But all of the children were wonderful, too. They listened, captivated, to the story. They didn't even mind that the women didn't have names (I will have to work on that...they should mind). They shook my hand and offered me peace in manifold adorable ways. They took communion in as solemn a manner as anyone could ever hope for preschool children. And when we were done, I didn't feel defeated, or sad, or hopeless.

 I didn't feel anything about me at all. 

It turns out that the preschool children are exhilarating. They gave me energy. They made me smile and forget myself and all my crazy, neurotic baggage. I'm so excited to see them again next week. Even if they cry, run in circles, and fight over markers. Because even if I don't manage to construct the perfect Montessori-style preschool Sunday school class, I can for sure love and welcome these beautiful little people. I can marvel at how their eyes light up, and how their voices sing, and how curious and creative they are, and how they try so, so, hard to learn to live with each other. 

It turns out that I can meet God in the basement just as readily as I can meet God in the sanctuary (or the social hall, in our case). God is there in the midst of the little children. Of course, God is. 

Thank God for the little children. And thank God for the Sabbath. And thank God for every new opportunity to practice (heels dragging and heart racing) selfless giving and humility. And thank God for the knowledge that I never will or can be "good enough" at this selflessness. And thank God that there is love and grace enough anyway: love and grace that look an awful lot like Play-doh, goldfish crackers, and sticky little fingers. 

And honestly, I don't know if I can conceive of a sanctuary constructed of anything more beautiful than that.